Which countries suit Black women? What women's-status and health data can and cannot show

The data gap at the intersection of race and gender

Women's-status indexes score countries on women as a group. They do not report separately for Black women, so a country that does well on them may still have a very different story for a Black woman, and the reverse can also be true. The same limit applies to the EU Fundamental Rights Agency's survey Being Black in the EU, whose headline figures cover all respondents of African descent and are not split by gender in the pages we read.

Only a few sources break results down by both. The clearest we found is the UK's confidential enquiry into maternal deaths, which reports risk by ethnic group, covered below. For everything else we state what each source covers and refuse to extrapolate.

The United Nations' Second International Decade for People of African Descent, which runs from 2025 to 2034, names systemic racism and persistent inequalities as challenges the Decade must address, and notes that around 200 million people identifying as of African descent live in the Americas alone. It sets goals rather than reporting country data.

Why the Gender Gap Report and the WPS Index rank countries so differently

The Global Gender Gap Report 2025 covers 148 economies and measures the gap between women and men on economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment. It measures gaps, not levels, so a poor country with a small gap can score well. As listed on Wikipedia, the United Kingdom is fourth, Namibia eighth, Germany ninth, Spain twelfth and Barbados fifteenth.

The WPS Index, produced by Georgetown's Institute for Women, Peace and Security with the Peace Research Institute Oslo, ranks 181 countries in its 2025/26 edition on 13 indicators across inclusion, justice and security. It measures absolute levels of women's wellbeing, including maternal mortality, partner violence and perceptions of safety. Denmark ranks first and Afghanistan last. On that measure the United Kingdom and France share 23rd, Spain is 25th, Portugal 26th, Jamaica 79th, South Africa 113th, Ghana 117th and Rwanda 121st.

The difference matters. Namibia is eighth on one index and 128th on the other, and Rwanda 39th and 121st, because a gap index rewards parity and a levels index rewards outcomes. Neither is wrong. Use both, and ask which kind of question you are trying to answer.

Walking alone at night, partner violence and maternal deaths in the WPS data

Three WPS indicators give a sense of daily security. Perception of community safety is the percentage of women aged 15 or over who say they feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where they live. Intimate partner violence is the percentage of ever-partnered women who experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner in the preceding 12 months. Maternal mortality is deaths per 100,000 live births.

Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Rwanda and Portugal are the highest in the sample on community safety, between 68 and 78 per cent. South Africa is at 25 per cent, Brazil 40, Mexico 41 and Colombia 42. Georgetown reports that globally 66 per cent of women feel safe walking alone at night, so more than one-third do not. Intimate partner violence is lowest in the table in Spain at 2.9 per cent and highest in Rwanda at 23.5, and maternal mortality ranges from 3.0 in Spain to 234 in Ghana.

These figures are for all women, not Black women, and they reflect the situation in the whole country. A national percentage does not tell you how safe a particular neighbourhood is, and the survey data behind them are collected for different years.

Maternity care: WHO global figures and the ethnic gap in England

For many Black women planning to live abroad for years, maternity care is a practical question. The WHO reports that about 260,000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2023, with a global maternal mortality ratio of 197 per 100,000 live births, down about 40 per cent since 2000. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for around 70 per cent of those deaths, while Eastern Europe's ratio fell by 75 per cent since 2000, from 38 to 9. The WHO links high numbers to unequal access to quality health services and says most maternal deaths are preventable.

Georgetown's report gives the Sub-Saharan Africa region's maternal mortality as 437 per 100,000 live births, the second highest of any region, and notes the region has the second-lowest WPS score. Within a country, averages can hide gaps by ethnicity and income. MBRRACE-UK's data brief for 2021 to 2023 is the clearest example we found. In England, the risk of maternal death for Black women was 2.27 times that of White women, with a confidence interval of 1.44 to 3.45, and women in the most deprived areas had nearly twice the risk of those in the least deprived. The Black women's rate was lower than in 2020 to 2022, but not significantly so.

That is one national dataset, and it is specific to England, because the data brief covers England only owing to the availability of denominator data. It does not mean that care is worse in the United Kingdom than elsewhere, and it does not say what the position is in countries that do not publish such figures. If this matters to you, ask the health system or insurer in your destination what data it publishes, and read countries with best healthcare for expats for the general picture.

Europe: what the FRA survey adds on discrimination and policing

FRA's survey of more than 6,700 people of African descent in 13 EU countries found that 45 per cent reported racial discrimination in the five years before the survey, rising to 76 per cent in Germany and 72 in Austria. Thirty per cent reported racist harassment, with 54 per cent in Germany and 10 per cent in Portugal. FRA gives housing as one example of the rise since 2016, with the 12-month prevalence of discrimination in the housing market going from 6 per cent to 28.

These results are for all respondents, so they do not separate women's experiences. Germany shows how two measures can diverge: it ranks 21st in the WPS Index and 9th in the Gender Gap Report, and has the highest reported five-year racial discrimination in the FRA survey. Portugal is 26th in the WPS Index and has the lowest reported racist harassment in the same survey. A woman choosing between them would be weighing different kinds of evidence.

Lisbon, Berlin, Madrid and London all have apartment-style stays, and a month in a furnished flat is one way to test a city before signing a lease. See serviced apartments for relocation for how that works.

Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean: strengths and gaps in the numbers

Several African and Caribbean countries combine strong women's representation with weaker health or security indicators. Rwanda has 61.3 per cent of women in parliament by the WPS Index measure, 76 per cent of women feeling safe walking alone at night, but a partner violence rate of 23.5 per cent and a maternal mortality ratio of 229. Georgetown notes that Rwanda fell from 103rd to 121st and South Africa from 91st to 113th since the previous edition. Barbados ranks 15th in the Gender Gap Report and 42nd in the WPS Index, and Jamaica 38th and 79th.

On employment, Georgetown reports average female employment in Sub-Saharan Africa of 71 per cent, higher than the global average of 56 per cent, though the region still has the second-lowest WPS score. Ghana's WPS rank of 117 and Gender Gap rank of 88 sit alongside a 62 per cent community safety score. Apartment stays are described on our pages for Kigali, Accra and Cape Town, and our guide to best places to live in Africa compares the continent on other measures.

Numbers like these are averages across millions of women. They do not describe the experience of a returning member of the diaspora, who may have different resources, networks and legal status from the women surveyed.

Questions to ask before you choose where to live

Use the indexes to build a shortlist, then ask Black women who live in your destination. Useful questions include where they find healthcare providers they trust, how housing and workplace discrimination is handled in practice, which neighbourhoods feel comfortable and how safe public transport is after dark.

For a first stay, a furnished apartment lets you test the answers. Our list of questions to ask before booking an aparthotel covers practical points such as reception hours and entry systems. For women travelling alone, our travel page on safest countries for women travelling alone uses its own sources.

• Use the Gender Gap Report for parity and the WPS Index for outcomes and safety.
• Read maternal health figures by ethnicity where they are published, as in England.
• Do not read racial discrimination from women's-status rankings.
• Ask local Black women about housing, healthcare and safety in your target city.